Adventures in Empathy
by cinnamon badge
Summary: [DracoGinny] Ginny doesn't feel sorry for Draco. Draco doesn't feel sorry for Ginny. But it's funny what simultaneous hospital visits do to people.


**A/N:** Written for the 100quills challenge on lj. Prompt #29: weakness. This fic is slightly AU in ways which are immediately apparent, and I'd like to warn readers that there is a lot of blood. A lot.

**Adventures in Empathy**

It was only their second day back, and already it was as though the students had never left. Friends who had been separated over the summer hols were joyfully reunited, everyone shared their travel stories with everyone else, and spoke of summer flings and heartbreaks. The Great Hall the evening before, after the Sorting, had buzzed with students refreshed by two long months away.

Ginny Weasley wished she could have joined in as wholeheartedly as everyone else.

Her schedule on the first day of classes permitted her to visit to Madam Pomfrey, so Ginny had gone after Charms, dragging a bagful of schoolbooks along with her. She had promised Dumbledore she would go to the hospital wing at the end of the last school year, after the horrifying events in the Chamber of Secrets.

"You have suffered more this year than many grown witches or wizards ever will," he had said kindly to her, understanding in his blue eyes. "But you are not expected to bear this burden on your own. If you ever wish to have a sympathetic ear, Miss Weasley, Professor McGonagall would be happy to help you arrange to meet with me."

"Thank you, Professor," she said, feeling awkward and young and inexperienced. "And...if I have trouble sleeping...?"

"Yes, of course," Dumbledore said, nodding. "I would, in fact, recommend that you see Madam Pomfrey on your return next fall, that she might make sure there are no lingering physical effects."

Charms had let out early, as everyone had done so well on their summer review quiz, so there she was, sitting in Madam Pomfrey's cozy office and describing her summer holiday.

"I've been having lots of nightmares," Ginny said. She tried to sound as though they didn't really bother her, that nightmares were for little children and not a girl of twelve. "Three or four a week, just of being back in the Chamber and...Tom."

"Hm." Madam Pomfrey scribbled something down on her scroll. "Any fatigue? Fainting? Dizziness?"

"Well, I get migraines sometimes," she went on reluctantly. "I never used to do." This also merited a notation on Madam Pomfrey's scroll.

"Is there any pattern to the migraines?"

"They --" Ginny's response was cut off as the doors into the hospital wing suddenly burst open, with such force that they banged back against the walls. The two other students in the wing, stretched out in their beds with stomachaches, both jumped and shrieked in surprise.

Madam Pomfrey leapt from her seat and bustled out into the ward, Ginny hot on her heels. Hagrid stood there at the entrance, breathing heavily, with a limp bundle in his arms. It took Ginny a moment to realize that the bundle was actually a student, for he was almost completely drenched in dark blood. He was motionless, most likely unconscious.

"Am I glad t' see yeh," Hagrid gasped, looking pale and frightened. "There's bin an accident --"

"I can see that!" Madam Pomfrey snapped, getting right to business. She led him to a bed near the window. "Here, lay him down and tell me what's happened."

Ginny stood at the office door, torn between morbid curiosity and embarrassment for the bleeding student. If she was in that state, she reasoned, she would most definitely not want other students standing around watching her. She made to turn back into the office and go back to her seat.

"Hippogriff got 'im," Hagrid was telling Madam Pomfrey, as she tore away the student's outer robes. They landed with a wet _splat_ on the floor. "He was awake at firs', screamin', but then halfway up here..." Hagrid gulped nervously, and looked horrified, as though he had hurt the student himself.

Curiosity won her over after that. Ginny stepped closer to the pair around the bed, as inconspicuously as possible.

Madam Pomfrey lightly slapped the boy's face. "Mr Malfoy," she said. "Draco, you're in the hospital wing, and I need you to -- how long ago did he lose consciousness?"

"A minute or so," Hagrid said miserably.

Madam Pomfrey mumbled something under her breath as she ripped away the right sleeve on Malfoy's school sweater and white dress shirt. A deep, ugly gash stretched the length of his forearm, bleeding profusely. She raised her wand, presumably to close up the wound -- but then stopped, frowning, and peered at Malfoy's arm again, bending over to study it more closely.

"What is it?" Hagrid said tearily.

"Oh Merlin," she breathed. Realisation dawned on her face. "Hagrid -- you need to go get the Headmaster _right away_ -- Merlin, why was I never told about this --!"

"Dumbledore?" he said. "But --"

"Please, I need him now! It's important, I --" Madam Pomfrey wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead, and for the first time in Ginny's memory, she looked absolutely panic-stricken. "I need Dumbledore," she repeated hoarsely.

Hagrid must have seen the same in the Healer's face, for he immediately bolted for the door, not even seeing Ginny standing there, and was gone. Now that he had left, Ginny's view of Malfoy was unobstructed, and she could see how shallowly he breathed, and the deathly-pale pallor of his skin. But how on earth could a simple scratch from a hippogriff do all of that?

Madam Pomfrey turned and saw her standing nearby. "Miss Weasley, I need you to go into my office and find the bottle marked 'Blood-Replenishing Potion,' it should be near the bottom --"

Ginny nodded and ran back to the tiny office, to where a ceiling-high bookcase was stocked with every medicinal potion imaginable. Her trembling fingers tripped over the neatly handwritten labels for _Pepper-Up Potion_ and _Stomach Remedy_, before she at last found the bright purple bottle marked _Blood-Replenishing._

She returned with the bottle to find Madam Pomfrey holding Malfoy's wound closed with her hands. Blood poured from it at an astonishing rate. "Excellent, cheers," the older witch said. She took the bottle from Ginny, uncorked it with her teeth, and coaxed Malfoy's lips apart to pour it into his mouth. He choked weakly, and his eyes blinked open. She made sure he drank off the entire bottle.

"Mr Malfoy," Madam Pomfrey said again, louder than before, "you were attacked by a hippogriff in class."

Malfoy's voice was barely audible. "I know," he whispered.

"Are you also aware that you're a haemophiliac?"

Malfoy nodded, once.

"Foolish child," Madam Pomfrey muttered, now incensed with anger, "gallivanting about with such a serious condition -- not even _bothering_ to let me know -- I'm only the school Healer, after all --"

Dumbledore strode in then, blue robes billowing out behind him, with Hagrid on his tail. "What's the problem, Poppy?" he asked calmly, gazing at her, Malfoy, and Ginny with expressionless eyes.

"Albus, Draco Malfoy has only now decided to let me know that he has haemophilia, just after he was scratched by a hippogriff." Madam Pomfrey shifted her grip on his wound, and even more blood seeped to the surface and onto the bed. "I've given him a Blood-Replenishing Potion, but that's only given us a few minutes at most. He needs to go to St Mungo's as soon as possible."

Dumbledore looked at Malfoy's arm, eyes narrowed. "Of course," he said. "What means of transportation would be the least jarring, in his condition?"

"It'll have to be Apparating, that's quickest. Albus, he needs a clotting potion soon, his blood pressure is plummeting --"

"Very well, Poppy. I will take him myself." Dumbledore bent and took Malfoy into his arms as though the boy were a small child, and then they were gone with a loud _crack_. The bed upon which Malfoy had lain was covered in blood.

"Merlin," Madam Pomfrey breathed, heaving a sigh. She went about stripping the bed and sending the sheets and Malfoy's discarded cloak towards the laundry bin. Ginny couldn't move for her paralyzing shock. "Merlin, Merlin."

"Will he be all righ'?" Hagrid asked her, clenching his hands together.

"Of course, now he's gone to St Mungo's," she reassured him. "Haemophilia is very rare these days -- don't think I've had a case in fifteen years or more -- but St Mungo's has just the potions to stop the bleeding." She washed her bloody hands in a basin at the bedside. "I'll need you to tell Professor Snape, as Draco's Head of House," she went on. "The Malfoys will need to be informed -- and _harshly reprimanded_ for not even telling me that their son --" She broke off with an angry mutter, as she furiously dried her hands. "Can you do that for me, Hagrid?"

"O' course, Madam Pomfrey." He backed away and left the hospital wing again.

Madam Pomfrey heaved another sigh and seemed to remember, at last, that Ginny was still there. "Miss Weasley, you cannot tell anyone what you saw," she said, very seriously. "I would have sent you off, or at least set up curtains around the bed had the case not been so grave. I thank you for fetching the potion for me, but I need you not to tell a soul about Mr Malfoy's condition. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Madam Pomfrey," Ginny said, mind whirling with everything she had seen.

"That goes for you as well," Madam Pomfrey said pointedly to the other two patients in the hospital wing. The students paled at her tone, but both nodded vigorously and agreed to not say a word.

They returned to her office and took their seats again, as Madam Pomfrey scanned over the notes she had taken before Malfoy and Hagrid's dramatic entrance. "All right, so you said you've been having nightmares and migraines this summer. Anything else? Any more blackout periods, or voices?"

"No," Ginny said, shaking her head. She was still thinking about Malfoy, how oddly different he looked when unguarded.

"That's good to hear, Miss Weasley. I can give you some Dreamless Sleeping Draught for the nightmares, and if you have any migraines, you can come by and I can give you something for those as well."

"I can't take anything with me?" Ginny asked. She wanted to be in the hospital wing as little as possible, if it could be helped. She hated hospitals -- the way they smelled, the way people acted while they were in them.

"Unfortunately no," the older witch said. "The migraines potion is a Class Three, and must be administered by a registered Healer." She seemed to sense some of Ginny's distress, for she gave her a small smile. "If you need to come for it, I can put up curtains round your bed."

"Thanks very much," Ginny said. She collected her Dreamless Sleep potions and left at a run to make Transfiguration on time.

For the rest of the week -- and for the first time since the events of the Chamber of Secrets -- Ginny's nightmares were only the second-most important thing on her mind. She was continually haunted by what she had seen in the hospital wing: Malfoy's cadaver-pale skin, the nasty surprise that he was a haemophiliac, his narrow escape from bleeding to death. She had never felt sorry for a Malfoy before, especially not since Lucius was responsible for giving her that diary, but here she was, feeling sorry for Draco.

What a sheltered existence he must have to lead, Ginny wondered. He played Quidditch, but now that she thought of the games in which she'd watched him play, he had always been exceedingly careful to not come in contact with anyone else. He'd run off rather quickly after some matches, she'd noticed. She had seen Hermione slap him too, and he had looked terrified. Ginny had dismissed it then as Draco simply being a lightweight and a weakling, but she understood now: if Hermione had hit him any harder, he could have bruised -- which would have led to internal bleeding -- which wouldn't have stopped...

A week went by before she suffered her first migraine of the school year. She woke that morning with shooting pains through her neck and shoulders, and what felt like a boulder pounding against the inside of her skull, and a writhing nausea in her stomach. Gingerly, she dressed and made her way to the hospital wing, where Madam Pomfrey fussed over her and gave her a potion and a bed where she could sleep off the side effects.

When Ginny awoke early that afternoon, it was to heated voices coming from a few beds over. She lifted herself onto her elbows, miraculously migraine-free, to see none other than Draco Malfoy sitting up in his own bed, right arm in a sling and heavily bandaged, speaking to Madam Pomfrey.

"I want to go back to class," he said imperiously.

"Well I'm sorry, Mr Malfoy, but we can't always get what we want," she shot back. "I am under strict orders from your parents to obey the Healers at St. Mungo's, and the Healers tell me that you need to be under observation for at least another twenty-four hours." She set a pile of books and parchment at the foot of his bed. "Miss Parkinson was kind enough to collect your homework for you. If you're bored, you might start it."

He said something too quietly for Ginny to hear, which made Madam Pomfrey's round face go bright red. "I could also contact your father and have him sit with you while you convalesce," she said tightly. "I'm sure he would be willing."

"That won't be necessary."

"I'll be in my office if you need me." Madam Pomfrey left his bedside, muttering furiously about ungrateful students.

Then, almost as though her stare were a tangible thing, Draco immediately turned towards Ginny. "Enjoying the show, Weasley?" he challenged, raising one eyebrow.

Ginny blushed under his scrutiny, and was caught without a comeback. "I -- er --"

"Why don't you go back to your drooling and snoring now, like a good girl." He leaned forward with his undamaged arm, and snatched a book off the top of the stack to open and read.

"I don't drool," she said lamely under her breath. As she didn't have any work to do herself -- Colin had promised to take notes for her in their classes -- Ginny sat and stared out the window, as the sun sank in the sky and began to cast longer and longer shadows through the hospital wing, until she fell asleep again.

_It was cold, so cold in the Chamber, and her clothes were soaked from lying on the slimy stone floor. Tom stood above her -- handsome Tom, who was so kind and considerate of her, and listened to her like nobody else._

"_There's nothing you can do," he said in his mellifluous voice, the voice she had once adored above all others. "You are dying, Ginny. You are mine."_

"_Tom," she whispered, trying to sit up, but her limbs were frozen, as though Petrified. "Tom, please..."_

"_They will all know soon," he went on, as though he hadn't heard her. "The news will spread, and soon everyone will know that you were responsible -- you Petrified those students, and killed the gamekeeper's roosters -- they will know what evil exists in you --"_

"_No," she cried, beginning to sob. "It's you, you made me -- you can't do this to me --"_

"_Weasley! Weasley!"_

_She looked up at Tom, wondering if he was taunting her, but the look on his face hadn't changed. The voice had come from elsewhere..._

"_Save me," she begged, "please, someone help me --"_

"Just bloody wake up, will you?"

Ginny started violently awake in her bed in the hospital wing, hands clawing at the bedsheets and the air in front of her -- and Draco Malfoy's cheek.

He jumped back the second she made contact, and, with a horrified look on his face, he felt his skin to check for a break. Ginny, only just piecing together what had happened -- and thankful to learn that her vision of Tom had only been a dream -- blurted out, "You're not bleeding."

"Thank Merlin," Draco sighed, but then he tensed. His eyebrows furrowed as he glared at her. "What --?"

"I was in the hospital wing last time," she said. "After...the hippogriff attacked you."

"So you know, do you?" he said, frowning and carefully folding his arms in front of his chest. "Bet you were thrilled to find out you had one up on a Malfoy. Bet it's plastered all over the Gryffindor common room as we speak, and Scarhead and his minions can't wait to --"

"I haven't told anyone," Ginny insisted. "I -- I think it's awful that you have to live with haemophi--"

"Say it a bit louder, I don't think they heard you in Orkney," he snapped, eyes darting around the hospital wing. They were the only two students there, but a lamp shone in Madam Pomfrey's empty office. Dusk had fallen while Ginny had slept, and was fading rapidly into night.

"I'm not going to tell anyone," she said, watching him. He was still pale from his harrowing escape from bleeding to death, but looked a sight better than he had that day. "It's not my secret to tell."

At that, he turned and regarded her with something different in his eyes. "And your nightmares?" Draco said. "How many people know about those?"

"No one knows," she admitted. "Just you."

Draco looked as though Christmas had come early. "So... if I were to let drop a few choice words in your brother's presence --"

"-- I would be forced to let everyone know why you bruise like a peach, yes," Ginny finished evenly.

"I can't help it," he shot back. "I was born with this defect."

"Wow, look how much I care," Ginny said, scowling up at him.

"You're fine, aren't you?" he said, changing tack suddenly. "Why are you still in here?"

"Migraine," she said. She settled back against her pillow, though her eyes never left his. "They're awful. I usually stay until the morning after I take a potion."

"Merlin, I wouldn't stay in this place a minute longer than I had to," Draco said, looking around the hospital ward. "People act differently in hospitals, like they're entitled to more than usual just because they've got a bit of a headache or a sliver in their finger."

Ginny blinked at hearing her very own philosophy coming from the lips of the boy she supposed she was meant to hate. "Yeah," she said slowly, "but I don't think we fall into that category. I get really sick, and you..."

"I could start haemorrhaging if someone bumped me in the corridor," he said dryly.

Ginny laughed, at first uncertainly, but then louder once she saw the faint smile twitching at Draco's lips. "How do you even manage to play Quidditch without losing a pint of blood each time?" she marveled.

"I don't have the really severe kind," he said. "It's not mild either, but I don't have to live in a padded room. I had to fight my father about it, since he was completely against my playing. I just wear lots of equipment, and..." He paused, biting his lower lip. His eyes darted towards her, then back at Madam Pomfrey's office, before he finished, in a near whisper, "All that candy my mum sends me? They're all laced with clotting agents and other potions my Healer has me take." Draco screwed up his nose. "The potions taste awful unless I take them with something sugary."

"And here we all thought you just had an incurable sweet tooth," Ginny said without thinking, for Draco's pale features immediately darkened again.

"'We'?" he said, frowning. "You and the wonder trio, right? I knew I couldn't trust you. You're just going to run right to them as soon as you get out, blabbing to everyone that Malfoy's got --"

"I said I wouldn't tell anyone, and I won't!" Ginny cried, but Draco was already stalking away from her, back to his bed down the ward.

"I know exactly how far to trust a Weasley," he said, sneering back over his shoulder. "Only as far as their purse extends."

Ginny felt as though he had struck her, and she was too shocked to speak. So she didn't, and the two of them didn't say another word to each other until a full three years had come and gone.

When they did speak again, it was for nearly the same reason as the first time.

Ginny had looked up everything she could about haemophilia after that day in her second year, bitten by curiosity that wouldn't be satisfied until she had found every last book in the Hogwarts library. Just like the Muggles, wizardkind hadn't found a lasting cure for it either, and before the disease was really understood, wizards -- and the rare witch -- who inherited haemophilia suffered just as much as Muggles. Ginny winced at the gruesome illustrations in some of the old books depicting wizards with gaping wounds, unable to do anything but watch themselves bleed to death.

But once she had absorbed as much as she could, she promptly stopped thinking about haemophilia at all, for her relationship with Draco was just as prickly as ever. If he stopped directing insults specifically at her, targeting Ron instead, then that was the only sign that anything had ever happened between them in the hospital ward that day. He wasn't going to tell anyone about her nightmares and migraines, and she would remain mute on the topic of why he shied away from physical contact with other people.

She was in her fifth year now, and starved after having skipped lunch. Ginny was running down to the Great Hall to at last get something to eat, when an echoing cry came from the opposite end of the hall, answered by another.

It sounded like Harry -- and Moaning Myrtle. And they both sounded scared.

Making an abrupt about-face, Ginny raced down the corridor and found herself standing in front of the boys' bathroom, which had a faint wet arch of water extending from the threshold -- Moaning Myrtle must have flooded the toilets again. "Murder!" Myrtle was screaming from within, while Harry muttered _No, no_ under his breath. "Murder!"

Ginny barreled through the door, and found Draco twitching and bleeding at her feet.

Harry looked up at her as soon as she entered, from his position kneeling beside the blond boy. "You can't be in here!" he said, turning bright red.

"Six older brothers," she said, rolling her eyes, before she knelt down on Draco's other side. "Do you have any candy on you?" Ginny asked him urgently.

Draco gurgled something unintelligible, and blood bubbled from his mouth. He flung his arm out from his slashed torso, and Ginny followed it to see his school bag, lying under the row of sinks. Diving for the bag, Ginny dug through its contents, moving aside textbooks and parchment and spare quills.

"What are you doing?" Harry said, sounding thoroughly confused. "Why are you asking him for _candy_?"

"Do shut up," Ginny said shortly, just as she found a half-eaten box of expensive French toffees. She opened the box to smell them and immediately drew back, repulsed by the medicinal scent. Hopefully, these were the candies laced with the clotting agents he'd told her about.

"Open up," she said, scooting back across the floor towards Draco. He opened blood-reddened lips and Ginny pushed a toffee between them and under his tongue.

"Murder!" Myrtle moaned. "The two of them are in a conspiracy!"

Suddenly, attracted by the ghost's screams, Snape burst into the boys' loo, and quickly absorbed the scene before him: Harry cowering on the floor, Draco spread-eagled and bleeding, and Ginny holding a box of candy.

"Back away," he spat, and Ginny put the box back in Draco's schoolbag, as Snape began magically sewing up the great rent that extended the length of Draco's torso and throat.

"I gave him a toffee," Ginny said to Snape, after he had made a second pass with the sewing charm.

Snape looked at her, surprise evident in his dark eyes. Before he could say anything, Draco spoke up, his voice hoarse. "She knows, Professor."

"Very well," Snape said coolly, eyes regaining their flat quality. She began to think she'd imagined his shock. "Miss Weasley, you may have just saved his life." Once he had made a third pass, and was satisfied that his charm work would hold for the time being, Snape stood and levitated Draco off of the ground.

"Twenty points to Gryffindor for quick thinking," Snape said bitterly, as though regretting every word. His eyes swung towards Harry and darkened considerably. "As for you, Mr Potter...stay here until I get back from the hospital ward." With that, he swept out of the loo, Draco floating before him.

Harry rounded on her immediately. "What the bloody hell was that all about?" he cried. "You see him bleeding and ask if he's got any candy?"

"It helped, didn't it?" Ginny said. "And -- Merlin, I can't believe Professor Snape just gave a _Gryffindor_ twenty points."

"He'll probably take back twice as many once he's through with me," Harry muttered, picking his wand off the floor. "He looked ready to do murder."

"You did that?" Ginny said, blinking in shock. "You -- cut him up like that?"

"I didn't know the spell would do that," Harry said defensively. "I -- I read the incantation in a book -- but it didn't say what it did..."

Ginny shook her head. "Just...lay off him, will you, Harry?"

Harry's eyebrows disappeared underneath his fringe. "Lay off? Ginny, I'll do that when he lays off me! The only reason I used that curse on him was because he was about to cast the Cruciatus!"

"Please," she begged, stepping closer. His Adam's apple bobbed when he swallowed. "I can't tell you why, but just trust me. Don't get into fights with him anymore. For me."

Those were the two key words, it seemed, for Harry looked away and scuffed his foot on the tiled floor. "All right," he muttered. "I promise."

"Thank you," she said sincerely.

"Yeah, well..." He scratched the back of his neck, looking thoroughly embarrassed. "You'd better leave before Snape gets back. I expect he won't be too pleased, you having saved Malfoy or not."

Ginny told him she'd see him later, and went down to the Great Hall just in time for the tail end of dinner. Hermione and Ron tried to engage her in conversation, and tried to figure out where Harry was, but she only told them he was in trouble with Snape and let her mind wander.

She supposed this meant Draco was indebted to her, but Ginny knew almost nothing about the magic of Wizarding Debts. The truth was, however, just as Snape had said: she had probably saved Draco's life. There was no telling what would have happened had she not given him one of his potion-laced toffees; the curse wound had gone a lot deeper than his hippogriff scratch, and he might not have made it to the hospital ward.

Just as she was thinking about how Draco was doing, and if he had reached Madam Pomfrey in time, Snape stalked into the Great Hall, scowling more than usual.

"Someone's got their knickers in a bunch," Ron muttered, as Snape walked to their end of the table and came to a surprising stop.

"He's asking for you," he said curtly, to Ginny, and without sparing the rest of them so much as a glance, he continued on his way to the staff table. They watched as he bent towards Dumbledore and started speaking to him, and how Dumbledore's eyebrows shot straight up, just as Harry's had.

"Who's asking for you?" Hermione said, frowning in confusion.

"Er -- maybe it's Harry," Ginny said, not meeting their eyes. "I'll see you guys later, I guess." She picked up one last piece of chocolate cake and then made her way out of the Great Hall and up to the hospital ward.

She had wondered how she would get past Madam Pomfrey, but that question was answered as soon as she walked through the ward's double doors. "I'll be in my office if he needs me," the Healer said, nodding at Ginny, and she gestured to the curtained-off bed at the opposite end of the ward. Ginny thanked her and walked up to it.

Draco was pale, as she had expected when she went through the curtains, and the dark crescents under his eyes more pronounced than usual. The part of the curse wound that had extended up his throat and cheek was barely visible now, though he was swathed in white linen bandages from neck to waist. His eyes had been closed, but opened as soon as she approached.

"Said there won't be any scarring," he said quietly. "And it won't take me as long to recover this time either, since I started clotting so soon."

"That's good," she said, offering him a wan smile. Ginny took the chair by his bed and dragged it closer. "I didn't tell Harry."

He sighed and closed his eyes. "Thank you."

She giggled. "I thought Professor Snape was about to have a stroke when he gave me those House points."

Draco smiled. "That probably would've been preferable to him," he admitted, "though I suppose he relished deducting points from Potter just as much as usual."

"Yeah." She toyed with the hem of his bedsheet. "Look, I --"

"I'm sorry about last year."

She blinked up at him. "I was just about to apologise for last year as well."

"Yes, well." Draco smirked at her as he shifted in bed. "Let's just say that I take care to use my handkerchief more often, in order to avoid a repeat performance." While Ginny chuckled, he went on, "I wanted to apologise for that whole mess last year. And to thank you for _only _doing the Bat Bogey Hex, because you knew exactly how to hurt me the most, even kill me -- and you didn't."

Ginny wasn't sure what to say. "Er -- you're welcome."

"And that's why I'm giving you the right to invoke a Wizarding Debt," he said, suddenly very serious. His eyes didn't waver from hers. "You've saved my life -- twice, if you want to look at it that way -- by not drawing blood when you could have a year ago, and giving me that toffee tonight."

Ginny's heart leapt into her throat. "Draco --"

"I mean it." He reached out and snatched her hand in one of his, and held it tightly. "I might despise your family and your beliefs, but my mother raised me to believe in honor and duty. You've saved my life -- so if it ever comes to that, I vow to save yours."

Their clasped hands thrummed abruptly, with an old magic that was stronger than any Ginny had ever before experienced. "I -- I accept your vow," she said shakily, wondering what exactly she was supposed to do. Her words seemed to do the trick, however, for Draco nodded, and released her hand.

"I don't believe in much," he murmured, "but I do believe in reciprocity."

Ginny wasn't sure what to say to that, even though a thousand questions sprang to her lips. What did he mean? Did he ascribe to You-Know-Who's beliefs like his father, or had he rejected them? Was he a Death Eater like Harry thought? _What did he mean?_ Instead, she stood and pushed back her chair. "I've got to get back to Gryffindor Tower before curfew," she said.

He nodded and made a dismissing motion with his hand. Before she turned away though, he blurted out, "Do you still have nightmares?"

"Sometimes," she said. "Not as often as I used to do."

Draco frowned down at his bandages. "Chocolate helps. With the migraines as well."

She smiled tentatively at him, inexplicably touched that he remembered. "Do you always carry toffees like that around with you?"

"Yes," he said. "Just in case."

"I'll keep that in mind. Just in case."

He looked up in surprise as Ginny vanished beyond the curtains.


End file.
